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Im going, he said of Fridays inaugural ceremonies for President-elect Donald Trump.

I want to be there, Brown said. His presence would remind Trump and other Republicans of the fights ahead on banking, civil rights and other issues on which there is a deep divide with Democrats.

I will be there, as well, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., chimed in during a conference call Tuesday about the potential for Trump to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Those views, from two Democrats considered for the 2016 vice-presidential nod, have been echoed by other leading Senate liberals. Over the weekend, Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also pledged to attend Trumps inauguration while vowing to keep up the fight against his policies in the Capitol.

So far, not a single Senate Democrat has joined nearly 60 House Democrats, almost a third of their entire caucus, who have vowed to boycott Trumps swearing-in. Those House Democrats have pledged solidarity with Democratic Rep. John Lewis (Ga.), who prompted a Twitter war with Trump over the weekend after declaring that Trump will not be a legitimate president in part because of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Lewiss declaration became a galvanizing call on the left, for whom the civil rights icon has always been a hero. Liberal activists vaulted Lewiss autobiography up the charts of online book merchants. They jeered Trump. They cheered for the boycott.

But none of it has translated into similar action at the other end of the Capitol.

Senate Democrats represent far broader numbers of people and have to be respectable and responsive to, in most cases, millions of their constituents who voted for Trump. And 25 of them are up for reelection in 2018. So there are 25 senators who probably think its risky, said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., who will join Lewiss boycott.

Brown plans to be a loud voice opposing Trumps efforts to dismantle key portions of the Dodd-Frank law regulating Wall Street but he also hails from Ohio, where Trump routed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the largest victory in the Buckeye State since 1988. To be reelected, Brown will need to win over voters who cast ballots for Trump.

The issue is trickier for Senate Democrats with clearer national ambitions. Last week, Booker sat next to Lewis as both testified against Sen. Jeff Sessionss nomination to be attorney general, citing the Alabama Republicans record on civil rights issues. Senate colleagues accused Booker of launching his 2020 presidential campaign.

Yet he wont be at Lewiss side on Friday; he will be on the Capitol terrace not far from President Barack Obama and Trump.

I respect everybodys choice in this, Booker told reporters in New Jersey. My personal feeling is this is the peaceful transition of power.

Warrens most extensive public comments came with members of the Boston press corps after an event honoring Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday. She reiterated her plan to attend the inaugural but ducked the issue whether Trump was a legitimate president.

What I agree with is that John Lewis is a man who has earned the right to have his view of Donald Trumps presidency and legitimacy, she said.

House Democrats have joined Lewis for a variety reasons. Yarmuth said Trump was legally elected and would be a legitimate president, but he could not support Trumps behavior before and after the election.

You have to show respect for the office, he said.

Its not the first time this month that Senate Democrats have disappointed their more activist House colleagues.

Just two weeks ago, during the official tally of the electoral college, House Democrats repeatedly lodged complaints regarding Russian interference, voter access to polling places and other allegations.

But no senator joined the protest; as a result, the objection could not even be considered under the complex rules of the electoral college. Its over, said Vice President Joe Biden, who presided at the event.

Lewis took the attack on Trump to a higher level during an interview taped Friday with NBCs Meet the Press.

The Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I dont plan to attend the inauguration, Lewis told host Chuck Todd.

Lewis, an original Freedom Rider who was beaten and arrested during civil rights protests in the 1960s, has long been considered a moral compass for House Democrats, if not the entire chamber.

When Democrats faced thousands of protesters over the Affordable Care Act in 2010, they put Lewis at the front of their line, a gavel in hand, and marched from an office building into the Capitol for the final hours of debate.

Last summer, as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., held off on debate over gun legislation, Lewis became the emotional leader of an overnight sit-in that still angers Republicans.

The response didnt slow him down.

Todd asked Lewis whether Democrats should work with Trump on any issue. Well, its going to be very hard and very difficult, he said. Almost impossible for me to work with him.

See the rest here:
Senate's liberals appear loath to join the inaugural boycott - Albuquerque Journal

For a man seeking to mobilise a new mass movement on the right of Australian politics, the normally outspoken ultra-conservative South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi has gone strangely quiet.

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The Liberal Party has paid the price for turning its back on its conservative base and Malcolm Turnbull bears much of the responsibility, says the right-wing South Australian senator.

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It looks like something out of the 1970s. A world that many Australians thought had disappeared. Think again.

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Advocate Andrew Denton speaks about Australia's role in spreading euthanasia laws around the globe.

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Journalist and author Malcolm Brown speaks frankly about his friendship with Michael Chamberlain, who died recently aged 73.

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Who won the most? Who was the youngest? The oldest? Get your Australian Open stats here.

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Following days of intense scrutiny over her expense claims, Sussan Ley has resigned as Health Minister with Malcolm Turnbull announcing changes to the MP entitlements system. Courtesy ABC News 24.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has accepted Sussan Ley's resignation from his frontbench amid revelations of her travel to the Gold Coast and use of expensive charter flights. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.

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Independent MP Andrew Wilkie wants the parliamentary entitlements system overhauled and thinks the current crop of politicians should have better judgement when claiming expenses. Courtesy ABC.

The Liberal Party has paid the price for turning its back on its conservative base and Malcolm Turnbull bears much of the responsibility, says the right-wing South Australian senator.

It is just over a month since he announced via a blog entry on July 6 that he was kick-starting an outfit dubbed the Australian Conservatives "to help change politics and give common sense a united voice".

On August 1, he emailed supporters saying he had "registered" more than 50,000 people and welcoming what he described as "the financial support of so many individuals".

He promised a new website was on its way using "some of the best communication technology available" and that an as yet unnamed communications officer had been hired.

But when Fairfax Media put questions to his office this week about what his plans were for the nascent movement, and whether his 50,000-plus recruits had done anything more than register an interest, Senator Bernardi did not respond.

More worrying for a number of his Liberal Party colleagues is that they have no idea where he is heading either. And their unease is growing.

"The feeling is that these guys, led largely by Cory Bernardi, are ready to do something that is quasi-separate," said one senior Liberal this week.

"But what does that mean? No one really knows. I think he wants to create a political force and the starting point is the Tea Party-type potential in Australia. The big question is whether it's something that could ultimately split from the Liberal Party. That's the great fear. For someone who really wants to roll their sleeves up and try to harness that untapped conservative force, you don't actually have to do too much to do it, and the Liberal Party itself certainly isn't doing it."

Another senior Liberal source told Fairfax: "Time, effort and energy are going into it and there are some very confidential conversations that are happening at a federal level, with people discussing whether to embrace what Cory and others are putting together."

This source says while there is growing recognition of the need to match the kind of activist network that GetUp! has achieved on the left of politics, there is confusion and disquiet over Bernardi's initiative.

"Do we bring him into the tent or does he want to run his own race? And do you decouple it from the Liberal Party, or try and keep it under the Liberal brand? That's the critical question."

I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else.

Bernardi has made no secret of the fact that his Australian Conservatives are in large part a response to the July 2 election result, which he has branded a "disaster".

Pauline Hanson's resurgent One Nation has bagged four Senate seats. And "over 1.7 million votes were cast for right-of-centre or conservative parties rather than the Liberal Party", he wrote in his July 6 blog post.

"From my perspective, that was the Liberal base expressing their unhappiness with past events ... The clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country. That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement," Bernardi said.

So far his chosen battlegrounds are, as they have been in the past, overwhelmingly on social issues: pushing back against same-sex marriage, the Safe Schools program, and Islam's interface with the West. Bernardi will be stoking the fires of conservative resistance on all these fronts. In a blog post two weeks ago, he called on the government to rethink accepting extra 12,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria, and renewed his call for a ban on the burqa.

Bernardi has twice leftthe Liberal frontbench: sacked by Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 for "disparaging" fellow South Australian Liberal Christopher Pyne, and resigning from the shadow ministryin 2012 after the furore over his linking same-sex marriage and bestiality. But as he told journalist Sally Neighbour in 2011:"I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else."

It's not the first time there has been open speculation about whether he might leave the Liberal tent. He quashed it in June 2014, when he addressed the National Press Club in Canberra. Last December he declared, again: "I think people want to make the Liberals work."

As recently as two days after the election, he was telling ABC's 7.30 that "what is best for the Australian people is a strong, cohesive and sound Liberal Party".

Still the subterranean talk of a possible splintering of conservatives from the main body of the party continues, driven by the shock of the election result and a deep sense of grievance among the religious right and their fellow conservatives who argue - as Abbott did on ABC's Four Corners this week - that the Liberal Party is being hollowed out by factionalism and careerism.

ABC election analyst Antony Green says "there is clearly room in the Australian political spectrum for a party to the right of the Liberals, a right-wing version of the Greens" which could have a "serious impact in the Senate".

And preference whisperer Glenn Druery - the man behind the stunning success of micro-parties in the Senate in 2013 - thinks a splinter conservative party "could potentially, if they're clever, pick up a Senate seat in every state and some lower house seats".

"Certainly some of the drift to Hanson by the conservative right is because they see the Liberal Party has walked away from them," Druery adds. He points to the government's wafer-thin one-seat majority in the lower house: "As in life, so in politics - timing is everything, and with the numbers as they are now, the timing would be perfect for a split."

A splinter party "would effectively be holding a conservative gun at the Liberal Party's head [because] the party would be obliged to accommodate their views on many issues".

Much as Bernardi appears to relish his semi-renegade status, he's an organiser as much as a "bomb thrower", concedes one party colleague.

In 2009 he set up the Conservative Leadership Foundation, to nurture promising young right-wingers and promote "the development in each person of the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope and charity." His latest brainchild, the Australian Conservatives, is billed as an "initiative" of the CLF, and both organisations appear to be headquartered at premises at 28 King William Street in the suburb of Kent Town, in his home town of Adelaide. Company and property records show the building, now named CLF House, was bought for a million dollars in February last year by Twenty-Eight KW Pty Ltd, a company owned by Bernardi and his wife, Sinead. As of last month, it carries a substantial mortgage of $750,000.

Bernardi declined to answer questions about the ownership and acquisition of the property, including whether his company was receiving rent from any party.

"The Senator has asked me to tell you that the only relevant information you need to know is that he has fully complied with his parliamentary obligations," a spokeswoman said. Asked specifically if any money from the Australian Conservatives was goingtowards funding the building, she replied: "Your questions are not related to the Senator's parliamentary responsibilities and he has no intention of discussing any non-parliamentary matters with you."

The building appears well-equipped, boasting state-of-the-art audio and video production facilities, and the ability to host "around 120 students with theatre-style seating or upwards of 150 in a cocktail format".

If nothing else, the significant investment it represents suggests Bernardi harbours substantial and long-term ambitions for his new political force.

Originally posted here:
Cory Bernardi keeps Liberals guessing about his Australian ...

Really sad news from the North East today. Chris Abbott, long-term Liberal Democrat Councillor from Redcar, has died suddenly.

The photo of him here is taken from his Twitter profile.

From Gazette Live:

A prominent figure in local Liberal Democrat politics for more than 40 years, he represented Newcomen ward, inRedcar, where he lived.

The 66-year-old lifelong Leeds fan and electrician was also chairman of Yorkshire Ridings Society.

Paying tribute, Josh Mason, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Liberal Democrat group, said: Chris was a bastion of local democracy and a lifelong liberal, whose knowledge, passion and dedicated community work, have been an inspiration to us all.

Redcar and Cleveland Council will be a lesser place without his principled values, commitment and tireless efforts for local people.

On behalf of Redcar Liberal Democrats, I offer sincere condolences to Chris family and to all who knew him, as we mourn together, the loss of a dear friend

Chris was one of the stalwarts of the early online Lib Dem Conferencing system, Cix and his blog was a brilliant mix of local news and commentary.

Its been ages since Ive done one of these and Ive decided to change it slightly so that I put in some of my favourite articles, videos and interviews from various media outlets, not just the Sunday papers.

First up this week exactly the sort of confident, bold setting out of the liberal values our society so desperately needs. Dutch liberal Marietje Schaake talks to CNNs Christine Amanpour about the benefits of liberalism:

Dutch liberals face a challenging election later this year with right wing populists headed by Geert Wilders in a strong position.

In the pages of the Express, you tend to find Liberal Democrats being lampooned. However, this is a quite charming article where Paddy Ashdown describes his favourite photograph his wedding photograph from 54 years ago. He talks about their first meeting at a Christmas ball:

Vince Cable is fundamentally wrong to suggest that there is no great argument of liberal principle for free movement and his case for ending free movement is weak. He ought to revise his views to be in more in keeping with liberal values which, in the face of rising and fierce anti-migrant rhetoric, are sorely needed.

His assertion that British opposition to immigration is mainly colour-blind is simply not true.

Fears and prejudices were purposefully stoked during the referendum with explicit scapegoating, disingenuous scaremongering about Turkish migrants and in particular Farages appalling blatantly non-colour-blind Breaking Point poster campaign.

Hate crime has soared since the referendum. The vast majority of the targets of xenophobic incidents and abuse have been EU migrants in particular citizens from Eastern European countries.

Islamophobia and associated crimes have also risen exponentially. Note the 25 serious incidents of anti-muslim hate crimes recorded in the three days after the Brexit vote. People are explicitly abusing muslims in the streets because we voted out, shouting shouldnt you be on a plane back to Pakistan? We voted you out!

The EU referendum vote has unleashed an ugly force of racism where those who hold prejudiced views feel emboldened to shout, abuse and attack people in the street, post excrement through peoples letter boxes and rip off peoples hijabs in public.

There are few things in life more irritating than the Daily Fail crowing. It is doing just that this morning after International Development Minister Priti Patel announced that funding for what the Fail called the Ethiopian equivalent of the Spice Girls was being cut from our international aid budget. In the same way as they pepper words like bogus around when talking about asylum seekers, or make it sound like every second person claiming benefits is doing so fraudulently (when the figure is less than 1%), they are trying to make it sound like all the money that we send overseas is being frittered away on frivolity.

What they dont tell you is that the group Yegna is a brilliant, innovative and creative way of getting an important message about womens and girls rights through to both men and women. It tells girls that they dont have to put up with being beaten by their parents. It changes minds. Just look at this poster from the Girl Effect, who manage this project.

Id particularly want to draw your attention to the changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours section. Almost all boys who were exposed to Yegnas work would be moved to report it if they were aware of a girl being forced into marriage compared with just over half who were not. 59% of girls beaten by their parents who had listened to Yegna would agree that it should be reported to the authorities compared with less than a third who had not. 25% more girls who had listened to Yegna realised that it was wrong for men to hit their wives.

I am frequently told that, as a Remoaner I must respect the result of the referendum. It seems to me that I am not being asked to respect it so much as to fetishise it.

Actually, I do respect it. I respect it for what it was an advisory vote won by a wafer thin majority based on a mountain of lies.

Then, because I say that, I am criticised (virulently quite often) for being undemocratic and for not respecting the will of the people. And many people who did not vote Leave, and do not want to leave, seem to have accepted the line that the vote has happened and they must respect it.

But democracy is so much more than a single vote.

Generally speaking electoral votes stand, even if the majority is unsatisfactory. But that is premised on two conditions. The first is that the voters get a chance regularly to change their minds. The second is that the voters were at least relatively well informed about the subject of their vote. All sides make their offers clear, and the media do a proper job of examining their claims.

It feels like 5 minutes since Nick Clegg and I were relative political youngsters in the East Midlands so it seems very strange indeed that all of a sudden he is celebrating his 50th birthday today.

When I was growing up, 50 seemed totally ancient. A hundred years ago, 50 was getting to the top range of life expectancy. But now it seems like its only barely into middle age. People start new careers in their 50s. Sadly, Barack Obama is going to be doing just that in a fortnight at the age of 55.

In the time Ive known him, Nick has gone from being enthusiastic candidate seeking selection to MEP to party leader to Deputy Prime Minister. It has been quite the roller-coaster ride.

Original post:
Liberal Democrat Voice

Anthony Bourdain, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, has called out privileged Eastern liberals including himself for their utter contempt of working-class Americans that he says made Trumps presidency possible.

In an interview with Reason magazine, the celebrity chef and television host lamented the proliferating fear of the Other, which he believes has led to a rise in nationalism globally, citing examples in the Philippines, Russia and Italy, as well as the Brexit vote in June.

When people are afraid and feel that their government has failed them, they do things that seem completely mad and unreasonable to those of who are perhaps under less pressure, Bourdain said.

Still, Bourdain said hewas empathetic to the circumstances thatled to outcomes in those countries. And he faulted those same forces for Trumps win in November.

The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that were seeing now, Bourdain told Reason.

Ive spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America, he added. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good.

[How Anthony Bourdain went from CNNs biggest risk to its most unexpected star]

Bourdain went on to criticize HBO political talk show host Bill Maher as the worst of the smug, self-congratulatory left after being asked about an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher a few years ago.

Not a show I plan to do again. Hes a classic example of the smirking, contemptuous, privileged guy who lives in a bubble, Bourdain told the magazine. And he is in no way looking to reach outside, or even look outside, of that bubble, in an empathetic way.

Such preaching to the converted, Bourdain said, was no way to win the hearts and minds of Trump supporters.

It doesnt change anyones opinions. It only solidifies them, and makes things worse for all of us, Bourdain said. We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what weve done.

The prolific chef received some criticism online for his comments, but he has defended his working-class background on Twitter, saying he had spent three decades rising up through back-of-the-house restaurant jobs.

Bourdain did not specify in the interview whether he might be interested in breaking bread with Trump, a notion he shot down ina September conversation with the Wrap. At the time, Bourdainwas asked whether he might consider a private dining session with Trump if he should be elected president.

Absolutely fing not, Bourdain told the Wrap. We know him well here [in New York] I would give the same answer that I would have given 10 years ago, when he was just as loathsome.

[Anthony Bourdain on dining with the presidential candidates: Honestly, thats not the business Im in]

The interview with Reason was conducted Dec. 20, the day after the electoral college made Trumps win official.Bourdains comments were part of a wide-ranging conversationthat included talk of Sichuan peppers, sex, eating dogs and political correctness, according to the magazine.

To be fair, such an amalgam of topics along with his usual dissing of vegetarians can be expected from just about any recent Bourdain interview.Theglobe-trotting, often foul-mouthed personality is also a best-selling author and host of CNNs Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, now in its eighth season.

During his visit to Vietnam, President Obama grabbed a 6-dollar dinner with TV chef Anthony Bourdain for an episode of his show "Parts Unknown," which will air in September. (Reuters)

This seasons premiere aired on Sept. 25 with a guest appearance by none other than President Obama in Hanoi, where the two drank beer and ate bun cha a Vietnamese dish of grilled pork and rice vermicelli atop plastic stools at a casual family-run restaurant.

Bourdain has made, well, no reservations about his disdain for Trump or for those who choose to do business with him.

In a recent interview with Eater, Bourdain said he had utter and complete contempt for restaurateur Alessandro Borgognone, who announced in November he would open a sushi restaurant at Trumps hotel in Washington.

I will never eat in his restaurant, Bourdain declared in that interview.

He expressed similar feelings about chef David Burke, who said he would take over another space at the same hotel after Jos Andrs pulled out.

Burkes a steaming loaf of s, as far as Im concerned, and feel free to quote me, Bourdain told Eater.

Read more:

Game of Thrones author laments news of death, death and more death in 2016

Former Brady Bunch star fired from radio show after vulgar, homophobic rant

YouTube star known for pranks claims he was kicked off Delta flight for speaking Arabic

Read the original:
Anthony Bourdain bashes fellow privileged Eastern liberals ...

Television and culinary personality Anthony Bourdain says in a new interview that fellow "privileged Eastern liberals" are the reason that Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTrump's 'delayed' intelligence meeting was always scheduled for Friday: report ExxonMobil, Tillerson reach agreement to sever all ties with company Schumer: Trump 'really dumb' for attacking intelligence agencies MORE was elected.

"The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that were seeing now," Bourdain told Reason.

Bourdain attributed the large divide during this political season and Trump's win last month on a division between "Eastern liberals" and red-state Americans.

When people are afraid and feel that their government has failed them, they do things that seem completely mad and unreasonable to those of who are perhaps under less pressure, Bourdain said.

Ive spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America, he continued. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love."

"When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good.

Bourdain also criticized HBO political talk show host Bill Maher as "the worst of the smug, self-congratulatory left," hitting the show as a perfect example for why many Trump supporters were frustrated with liberals.

It doesnt change anyones opinions. It only solidifies them, and makes things worse for all of us, Bourdain said.

We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what weve done.

Link:
Anthony Bourdain on Trump win: People were sick of ...